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Sunday, September 15, 2013

John Hettinger (NYB) Quotes

Rick Violette, winning trainer of Effie Trinket (No. 8): "We were very, very patient today. Watching the Garden City yesterday, it almost didn't matter how slow you went up front; they were going to quicken and you weren't going to win."

"I thought we were getting parked and stuffed around the turn, and if [Luis Saez] didn't have a whole lot of horse we were just going to get hot and dirty. Obviously, he rode pretty confidently. Fortunately, he knew what he was sitting on. When he asked her to run at the five-sixteenths pole, it looked like, 'Oh, my God. Here she comes.' She gave up a lot of ground around the turn and still was best. She's pretty game."

"She's a nice filly. You look at her form and throw out the [Miss Grillo in which] she was ninth and obviously didn't handle the real, real soft turf that day, and she might have been over the top at that time, too. Every time you run her, she shows up: sprinting, middle distance and now a mile and an eighth around two turns. It's pretty cool."

"I trained her a little differently going into this one. I thought she kind of got lost at Saratoga. She turned for home and didn't really know what to do because I thought she was going to get swamped that day. She was on the lead and I thought four or five horses were going to pass her, and she fought hard to be second. I think that experience helped her today, kind of knowing that there's a little more running to do when you turn for home."

"I don't know [what's next]. It's race by race. I could have waited; there's a flat mile next week against 3-year-olds. I gambled on the distance and that gave me another week to set things up for our next spot rather than having to run right back."

Luis Saez, winning jockey aboard Effie Trinket (No. 8): "I liked the filly. She comes running pretty good. I watched her replays and I tried to put her in a good spot. I had a lot of horse and I knew I was going to win the race when I saw Irad [Ortiz, Jr., aboard eventual second-place finisher No. 4 Wholelottashakin]. I switched my whip to my left hand, and she responded unbelievable."